Philip Kindred Dick was born in Chicago in December 1928, as a twin sister, Jane, shared his arrival, but tragically, Jane passed away less than eight weeks later due to an alleged allergy to her mother's milk. This devastating event was a precursor to the tumultuous and unpredictable nature of Dick's life.
As a child, Dick's parents separated, and he relocated with his mother to Berkeley, California, where he would spend most of his life. This period of instability would shape his worldview and influence his writing.
Dick's literary career began in 1952 with the publication of his short story "Roog." His first novel, "Solar Lottery," was released in 1955. During the 1950s and 1960s, Dick wrote and sold nearly a hundred short stories and over two dozen novels, including "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?," "Time Out of Joint," "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch," and the Hugo-award winning "The Man in the High Castle."
However, Dick's personal life was marked by chaos, with five marriages and drug experimentation, which temporarily derailed his career in the early 1970s. Despite his protestations that reports of his drug use were exaggerated, this period of turmoil had a lasting impact on his life and work.
After a hiatus of several years, Dick returned to writing in 1974 with the Campbell award-winning novel "Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said." This same year, Dick experienced a profound religious event that would forever alter his perspective.
Dick's final years were characterized by his intense focus on the 1974 visitation, which he believed was either a divine revelation or a manifestation of his own schizophrenia. This event influenced his writing, particularly in his final novels, including "Valis," which features a God-like machine that communicates with a troubled science fiction writer, Philip K. Dick.
Despite his literary success and critical acclaim within the science fiction community, Dick struggled financially throughout his career. He worked primarily for low-paying science fiction publishers and rarely received royalties from his novels after the initial advance. This financial insecurity drove his remarkable productivity, as he often needed the advance money from his next story or novel to make ends meet.
Towards the end of his life, Dick achieved a measure of financial stability, partly due to the royalties he received from the producers of Blade Runner (1982) for the rights to his novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" Unfortunately, he did not live to see the film's premiere, as he passed away of a heart attack at the age of 53.
In the years following his death, several films have been adapted from his works, including Total Recall (1990),and several unpublished novels have been published posthumously.
